In many instances it is desirable to know the location of an individual or individuals within a building or other such site. This is particularly the case with emergency response personnel such as policemen, firemen and the like, as these individuals are often operating in the context of dangerous conditions such as fires, floods, or other conditions where knowledge of the individual's position would help coordinate efforts to resolve the emergency. While it is common for such personnel to utilize radios and other communication equipment in emergencies, due to the exigencies of an actual emergency, the information transmitted by emergency personnel can be intermittent and/or inaccurate.
In recent years, Radio frequency identification (RFID) systems have achieved wide popularity in a number of applications, as they provide a cost-effective way to track the location of a large number of assets in real time. In large-scale application such as warehouses, retail spaces, and the like, many types of tags may exist in the environment (or “site”). Likewise, multiple types of readers, such as RFID readers, active tag readers, 802.11 tag readers, Zigbee tag readers, etc., are typically distributed throughout the space in the form of entryway readers, conveyer-belt readers, mobile readers, etc., and may be linked by network controller switches and the like.
While it is common for RFID tags to be distributed throughout a commercial space to track assets, the tags are not been deployed in a way that would assist in tracking individuals within the environment as would be required by emergency personnel. Furthermore, emergency personnel are not equipped to read such tags and process the information in a way that would assist them in any meaningful manner. Furthermore, GPS systems may not work in certain environments, and can not generally provide accurate 3-dimensional information.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide improved methods and systems for determining the location of firemen, policemen, and other emergency personnel in environments where no personnel-locationing RFID infrastructure has been deployed. Furthermore, other desirable features and characteristics of the present invention will become apparent from the subsequent detailed description and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and the foregoing technical field and background.